


And Then

by trascendenza



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Episode: s01e01 Genesis, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-02
Updated: 2007-11-02
Packaged: 2017-10-05 13:44:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>It would be an adventure, Ando had said, going to America.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	And Then

**Author's Note:**

> For tinheart. ♥

Ando was the one who wanted to go to America.

*

He would go on and on about how everything over there was bigger, better, and the _women_, he said. The women weren't like the ones in Japan. They were the best of all.

Hiro would nod along politely to encourage Ando to keep talking, but the truth was, he didn't understand. Mostly about the women.

*

Hiro liked women well enough, but not as much as Ando did, or as much as everyone else thought he should. They were very pretty—there were a few he even managed to talk to.

But when it was more than talking, the rare times that it became _dating_, he kept running into the same obstacle over and over again.

They weren't Ando.

Offering to play Baldur's Gate had gotten him slapped on one memorable occasion, but Ando? Would play with him until they were so tired their fingers could barely press the keys. Another time, he'd tried to show off his D&amp;D miniatures, gearing up for a treatise on how, when he had the whole collection, he would buy a special case with proper lighting to display them in. That date had ended before seven o'clock. Granted, Ando wasn't very good at the painting, but he would happily keep Hiro company for hours as he dabbed blues and blacks and royal purples on the metal.

Hiro learned, over time, that trying to discuss the finer points of characterization in the Ultimate-verse versus the Uncanny-verse got him blank looks. Ando laughed about his love of comics, it was true. Yet, even when Ando was laughing at Hiro—Hiro somehow felt that Ando was laughing _with_ him. There just wasn't anything cruel about it.

They didn't have to understand one another to _respect_ one another.

That's just the way things were with Ando.

*

He'd tried to explain it to Kimiko, once, put form to the inexplicable rightness of Ando. She'd just talked right over him, saying that father was very displeased with his lack of engagements, and set him up on another date.

*

It would be an adventure, Ando had said, going to America.

Hiro may have thought America was a strange place, but he'd heard. He _listened_ when Ando talked about his dreams.

*

So when Hiro is standing in the train, the propulsion gently rocking him forward, he looks at the sign and he thinks of Ando. He thinks how happy it would make Ando if he could take the two of them to New York. How impressed he would be.

And when Hiro closes his eyes tightly, he sees Ando smiling, gesturing largely with his arms, talking about how much fun they'll have, how they'll see it all together. And he wants, he _wants_ to give that to Ando, to show him, _look, I can do it, I wasn't lying to you, I would never lie to you—_

And then—

_I'll show you, Ando. I'll show you that I'm a hero._

—and _then_.


End file.
